


(Don't) wake me up.

by Ria_Trevelyan



Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Angst, F/M, Kink Meme, Non-Graphic Smut, Prompt Fill, The Fade
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-01
Updated: 2015-02-01
Packaged: 2018-03-09 22:50:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,098
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3267284
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ria_Trevelyan/pseuds/Ria_Trevelyan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This story was written for the kink meme prompt:</p>
<p>"Lavellan has been acting a bit strange for a time: she's exhausted, frustrated, and perhaps avoiding Solas altogether. </p>
<p>I'd like to see Solas becoming concerned enough that he goes into the fade to help/console Lavellan while she's sleeping, only to find her resisting a male desire demon that has been taking Solas' shape (possibly for some time) in order to tempt her. </p>
<p>What happens from here, I leave to you - feel free to tweak details!"</p>
            </blockquote>





	(Don't) wake me up.

The dark bags under her eyes aren’t his first clue, but they are the tipping point: _now_ he is watching. 

_‘Relax,’_ he tells himself _‘She trusts you, considers you a dear friend, surely if she is in need of help you would be the first to know.’_

He has been more than patient. 

But she continues to wilt. Her lively ways and luminescent complexion dim. She is seen around the castle dazed and confused. He hears her ask “What was I doing? Where was I going?” and watches as her normally meticulously braided hair falls into a disorderly updo.

She is almost bested by bandits on the road to Redcliffe. Fails to notice a rogue, counts their numbers wrong. Then again as they bring flowers to a shrine she stumbles, reaching for a chest -- Bull barely manages to grab a handful of her leathers before she plummets to her death. But for the rest of their trip he cannot get it out of his head. He almost lost her. 

_‘Never again.’_ becomes his mantra. She survived Haven, faced down an ancient magister, and endured an avalanche to get here. He will _not_ see her bested by gravity simply because she will not _rest._

It does not matter that she does not know the depth of his feelings, can _never_ know their true form. He will _not_ lose her, not _yet._ Not until there is no other choice. Their kiss in the fade was a blunder on his part, and impulsive act that had threatened everything. 

_Time._

He’d said he needed time, and truer words were never spoken. She would be long dead by the time he was free to love her, to be with her as she deserved. Her accursed mortal life would flicker and die out in all but a blink of his eye. 

What he wanted, craved, could never truly be. And what _she_ wanted --- well….

It was possible she did not want him at all anymore. Not as anything more than an advisor, a trusted friend. _Hahren_ , she had taken to calling him. Elder, Old man. It was not exactly a term one used for their beloved. 

Far more likely her affection had been stolen. He knew there was no shortage of those who desired her. Cullen and Josephine both watched her with flushed cheeks and glazed eyes more often than Solas could ever be comfortable with.

When she trips over a prominent (and easily avoidable) root and stumbles into him he is pulled from his thoughts barely quick enough to catch her. She smiles up at him apologetically, guiltily, and Solas makes his decision.

_Enough._ He will not tolerate this behavior anymore. She has been reckless, and is clearly unwell.

And…. _loathe_ as he would be to admit it. He is deeply worried about her.

They will discuss this back at Skyhold .

\---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

He approaches her in private, of course. Ellana will not want the others to see her weakness, and he does not want to sound like he is accusing.

The burdens of command are many and unforgiving -- as he well knows. He expects perhaps some anger, indignation. She is wise and mature more than any other he has met in this age. But she is still young, and vulnerable to all that implies. 

Instead, she blushes. The flush of skin extending to the very tips of her ears, and piquing his curiosity (among other things). 

She murmurs some number of excuses, but his mind latches on to only one word. _‘Nightmares’_.

Pressure, insecurity, and paperwork he can do nothing about. Dreams, on the other hand, are rather his speciality. 

He excuses himself shortly thereafter, his mind already brimming with ways the many ways he could put her at ease. Realistically, he will probably slip in, chase away the demons plaguing her and steal a few glimpses for his own gratification. 

However, in his mind he paints himself a much more dashing hero. He allows himself fantasies. Thinks that perhaps he will find her in the midst of a terror, fighting Samson or perhaps even Corypheus. Then he will storm in, down the enemy in one fowl swoop and sweep her off her feet. From there he will carry her through the hall for all to see, claiming her as his before ascending the stairs to her private chamber and --- **No.**

 

If he is to invade her privacy without permission it will not be to satisfy such greedy and shallow fantasies.

The intervention is to put her at ease, nothing more. If all goes well she will never even know he was there. No gratitude, no fade-tongue, and definitely no _claiming._ Whatever interest she once had in him, no doubt it would be chased away entirely were she to see what he truly was, what he truly _desired._

No, he would claim no glory and reveal his presence only if absolutely necessary. Of course, he would have to keep a close eye on her dreams for at least a fortnight afterwards. Making sure the nightmares did not return. That’s all. 

Not greedy. Not selfish. Just doing his duty for the Inquisition. 

_‘Foolish old man.’_

 

\-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Shit.

He’s was completely on to her. 

_Shit._

She had to get this under control _now._ Creators, she _hated_ lying to him but what would he think of her if he knew?

A silly little girl still hung up on a single kiss. A single, amazing, completely disarming, all-encompassing kiss. A mageling so incompetent that she could not control her thoughts even enough to get a peaceful night of sleep, who could not stop _wanting_ so loudly that every desire demon in the fade flocked to her.

So much for the indomitable will he had so admired her for. 

Mythal’s tits but she was exhausted. Rung out through and through. She could hardly form coherent thoughts anymore, body running essentially through muscle memory. Yet, she could not afford to give in to her heavy eyelids just yet.

First she needed to center herself as much as possible, to go through all the meditation and spirit techniques the Keeper had ever taught her to protect herself in the fade.

Not that Ellana was even sure that they _worked_ anymore -- they certainly hadn’t been helping her recently -- and after all the things she had learned from Solas about magic and the pointlessness of many Dalish traditions…...but at this point she couldn’t really risk it. 

Solas’ face danced behind her eyelids as she tried to focus on the feeling of the fade licking at the edges of her mind. _Unf._ No wonder demons flocked to her, where had all her hard-won discipline gone?

Ok, come on, focus. Feel the threads connecting you, visualize the path you’ll walk in the fade.  
No demons, no distractions just -- his lips, full and pink, so soft on her own -- the old familiar hunting paths. Picture aravels and all the familiar tents. The halla grooming each other and -- his shoulders; so broad, the safe, warm feeling of being completely engulfed in his arms -- the craftsmen shaping Ironbark. The distant shape of the clan’s Fen’Harel statue, almost out of sight.

_‘Oh no’_ she feels herself slipping through the veil, into her dreamspace in the fade. She’d fallen asleep meditating.

Now the images become real. She is there in the camp again, her _‘safe’_ dream space invaded by demons once more. Ellana hears the voice of the elders as they sing old _elvhen_ songs, the fragrant smell of incense burning over the fire. She should retreat to her tent for shelter or seek out the company of the Keeper; but already she can feel her mind clouding. Silent voices whispering to her, urging her to forget where she is, what she was doing.

She was…

There was something….

A flash of movement at the treeline draws her gaze. **Solas.**

_‘Ma Vhenan.’_ her heart calls out to him, and he beckons her. Turning back into the forest after shooting her a sultry look. A look full of promises and unspoken desire.

...and once again she is well and truly lost. 

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

It is well past midnight before he can finally sense her presence in the fade and at once he knows there is something very wrong.

He has strived in the past to not seek her out. To not stalk and study her dreams like he so desires. And as such he has done his best to block her out.

Up until now he had thought himself largely unsuccessful, still always aware of her on the edges of whatever memories he wanders. Clearly that is not the case.

Her presence is like a beacon, burning bright, drawing in ~~spirits~~ demons like a moth to a flame. This is worse than he had feared. How much must she have been suffering, for it to reach this point? How many nights had she spent fighting for her life when she should have been recuperating?

Normally he was forgiving of spirits, even the ones most would condemn as demons had their uses; were not always hostile. But these, the ones that threatened to take her from him. No: The ones that nearly _had._

There will be no mercy here. 

In his haste to protect her Solas fumbles, draws himself into her dreams with urgency where there should have been finesse. He is here, but she is not nearby. 

Immediately he realizes he has been mistaken. Demons of many varieties hang around the edges of this dreamscape but only one has entered.

Old and powerful, its presence almost so potent as to eclipse hers entirely. Yet his immediate response was only pride. Solas had thought it a symptom of her youth and inexperience, that she had allowed her volatile emotions to poison her dreams so. And while that may have originally been true, the fact that she has stood for over a _month_ against the pressure and machinations of something so old and powerful.

He had never felt adoration so keenly, but there is also fear. The situation is far more dire than he had assumed, and he must reach her quickly.

A moment of concentration is all it takes to feel out a path to her, and he follows it with haste. Careful all the while not to let his presence be felt by the (he presumes) greater fear demon. Losing the element of surprise here could be dangerous for them both.

_‘Hold out just a little longer ma sa’lath, I am coming.’_

\---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

She follows the phantom of her (would be) lover through woods that turn to ruins, ruins to snowy mountains, and soon she is climbing the familiar stairs to her bedroom in Skyhold. The creature -- no _Solas_ , always **_Solas_** \-- has a firm grip on her mind now. Hypnotizing her in the way that only desire demons can. His every gesture is seductive, his every look a promise. 

Ellana’s purpose and resolve lie in ruins, all that remains of her resistance is the one mantra in the back of her mind that is the first thing every mage child learns. Accept no offers, do not say yes, do not let it in.

But even that echo begins to fade as he stalks over to her bed -- covers invitingly mussed, the warm glow of candles all around -- his hips swaying in that familiar rhythm that so entranced her when they were lost in the Frostbacks. Not a day out from nearly dying and she had been hard pressed not to ravish him, or at least try to.

_‘Why resist?’_ a treacherous voice whispers in her mind, though whether it belongs to her or ~~the demon~~ Solas she no longer knows. _‘We have ached for so long, we are empty, unfulfilled.’_

He lowers himself onto the bed, impossibly inviting for someone fully-clothed, and suddenly there is no distance between them. She stands between his legs, looking down into his eyes, drinking in his flushed cheeks. They are so near now that Ellana can feel his warmth, smell the familiar scent of old books, paint and lyrium. His hands come up to rest almost chastely on her thighs, but the innocent touch ignites her still. 

_‘You **want** him.’ _His touch trails up her thighs, dexterous fingers trailing over the shape of her waist, her ribs, brushing tantalizingly close to the swell of her breast, _‘You **need** him.’ _

“I -- oh” she gasps out as his arms wrap around to her back and pull, tumbling them both back onto the bed and then --

Reality goes topsy-turvy. They are naked and clothed all at once. He is over her, pinning her arms to the bed and thrusting in - and in -- and -- **no.** She is on top now, nails raking down his chest and she is so _full._ The feel of his growl in her ear and his teeth on her neck. His lips feel just as she remembers, but now they taste of her juices and Ellana moans deeply against his mouth.

It is just enough and far too much all at once. Not enough, she _needs_ more. It is all too fleeting. Not real, it has to be real, it has to be…

_“You need **me.** ”_

Ellana shakes, no, thrashes her head from side to side. Not trusting her voice, not even being able to find it. “ _Yes_ , vhenan’ara.” it is definitely Solas’ voice now, low and urgent in her ear. “Say _yes_ and I am yours. Say you need me.”

“I -” she begins, not sure where her words will take her. Not sure she has the strength this time, not sure --

_**“Say it.”** _

 

\---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

“Enough!” a voice booms. There is a loud bang and a strong surge of magic as her dream shatters around her. The demon blows away as if on the wind, banished or destroyed she does not know. All at once Ellana’s wits return to her and she turns towards ~~the intruder~~ her savior, feeling the blood run cold in her veins at once.

Solas. 

Actual, _real_ Solas here in her dreams. Banishing her demons, sweeping in like a white knight. Creators have mercy, it only makes her want him more, but…

He turns to her and his eyes are hard and furious and all at once she knows he has seen. Like a fool she had hoped he had merely sensed the demons presence and reacted, but the rhythmic clenching of his jaw and the way he will not quite lock eyes speaks volumes.

_‘Dread Wolf take me,’_ she thinks miserably, _‘I’ve ruined everything.’_

‘He will never want me now.’

How much had he seen? What had it even looked like to him? To Ellana it had been a chaotic rush of desire and filthy whispered promises. If Solas had not intervened…

If her blood had chilled before, now it must be nothing but drifting snow. 

She would have said _yes._ She would have let that filthy thing crawl inside her just because it wore the face and wielded the voice of the man she wanted but could not have.

“You must wake up now, da’len,”

Ellana flinches from the endearment, but is reassured (if only slightly) by the lack of audible disapproval in his voice. He sounds almost satisfied...pleased?  
She can’t be sure, but it is without a doubt a tone she has not heard from him since ---  
Since the kiss they had shared in the fade so long ago.

“The mark gives you too much power in the fade, attracts too much attention, it will not be safe for you here until you calm yourself.”

Easier said than done, of course. But she trusts him, even in the current state of chaos that is her emotional equilibrium she trusts him over all. So Ellana listens, she obeys. She takes deep breaths and steadies her heartbeat. Focuses on clearing her mind, on forcing her way back into reality.

Gasping and overwhelmed she breaks through the surface of her dream. Emerging almost seamlessly back into reality and looking around her environment. It had changed little. Candlelight still flickered on the walls, though it no longer seems so warm and alluring. Her bed still remained untidy, though now it beckoned her more with comfort than with seduction.

Solas was gone, of course. _Creators,_ how would she ever look him in the eyes again? How could she face him, fight beside him, sleep in a tent less than an an arms length away from his without…  
Without blushing, without bursting into humiliated tears, without begging his forgiveness, without slipping not-so-silently into his bedroll.

On shaky legs Ellana rises and stumbles to her vanity, splashing cool water on her face from the washing basin there. The mountains outside her windows bear luminescent halos of light pink, the first signs of dawn. It would be morning soon, and despite the ordeal she had gone through Ellana felt truly rested for the first time in weeks.

A bath then. A quick soak to forget her sorrows, an hour or two answering missives, and she’d be off to Crestwood. That would give her some much needed distance to compose herself, and upon return to Skyhold she would simply greet Solas as if nothing ever happened.

_‘Yes, that will work. It **has** to.’_

Legs still slightly uncertain with nerves Ellana stumbles over to her door, ready to call down for some water and _more_ than ready to put recent events from her mind; only to find the knob already turning under her trembling fingers.

There is a brief moment of confusion followed by a very undignified yelp as the door opens and she falls backwards clumsily, ending up in a strange sitting position on the stairs.

_‘Mythal’s tits, who puts a door halfway down a flight of stairs anyhow?’_

Ellana listens as the wood of the door thuds softly against the wall, and is afraid to look up. She _knows_ it’s him. Who else would know to call on her so early, at an hour she is known to typically be asleep? An assassin, a thief maybe. At this point she almost wishes those possibilities true. 

She could use a good fight right now, get her blood pumping and redirect all her anxious energy.

“Inquisitor?”

His voice, soft and so concerned. It holds none of the judgement she feared and yet….her eyes stay glued to the wood grain beneath her fingers.  
Solas steps closer, hesitation visible in the way his normally fluid and confident movements stutter. 

_‘Ok, I can do this, I’m an adult -- the goddamn Herald of Andraste.’_ or so she tells herself, with no dearth of sarcasm.

“Solas,” she greets him brightly, taking his offered hand and rising to her feet. His face is contorted into a concerned frown, and when Ellana turns to re-enter the bedroom proper he closes his fingers tightly around hers and pulls her back around to face him.

As much as she doesn’t want to have this conversation, she wants even _less_ to have it on the _stairs._ Not that Solas seems bothered.

“Are you alright da’len?”

That word again, Ellana hates it.

“I’m --” absolutely mortified, “completely fine, your timing was excellent, _hahren_. I think I may owe you my life once again.” 

_‘Just add this to the upwards of a hundred times you’ve saved my ass in combat and we’ll call it a day.’_

She shoots him an incredibly ingenuine smile and turns once again to head up the stairs only to be pulled back around once more -- not _quite_ so gently this time. The momentum makes her stumble down a step, colliding with his chest. 

He frowns sternly down at her, disapproval written clearly on his features.

“Do not make light of this lethallan... _Ellana. Please._ I must know what I saw, and I must hear it from you.”

Yea, no fucking way that’s happening.

“You want a step by step walkthrough? You were _there,_ you saw what kind of demon it was, what---no, _who_ \-- it looked like.”

“I saw, yes.” His gaze is intense, almost impossible to hold, but his scholarly, long-fingered hands come to rest on her waist and Ellana is well caught. “but until this moment I was unsure whose desires the demon reflected. I thought perhaps my presence had...changed things.”

He thought, what?

“You mean you….desire me?” It sounds ridiculous when said aloud, surely she’s misunderstood. Wishful thinking at it’s finest.

Then he smiles at her, the playful, indulgent smile he’d worn on his lips when they’d pressed against hers the first time, the only _real_ time. 

“Yes, vhenan’ara. I want you.” 

Their second kiss is nothing like the first, all passionate urgency wiped away. Warm, soft lips ghost over her own, “Ar nuvenin ma.”  
His whisper makes her shiver and they almost end up embedded in the castle wall when they both get the bright idea to try fade-stepping at the same time.

-  
-

And, well, it’s nothing like it was in the dreams. The desire demon had nothing on this, couldn’t possibly compare to the real thing. Fantasy was too smooth, too surreal to be fulfilling. 

Their real coupling is clumsy, perfectly imperfect. His chest is no where near as sculpted and smooth, but now Ellana has the pleasure of learning his scars and freckles; taking time to map them out with her tongue as she learns his body. 

The demon had always known exactly what she craved, where she needed touch most. With Solas it is a learning process. He lingers too long on her breasts, no doubt trying to be considerate; but Ellana is not sensitive there like most women. 

There is a moment of confusion when she peels his leggings off and sees him for the first time. He is mostly erect and breathtakingly gorgeous, yes...but also strangely _bare_. There is skin missing from him, though when she asks he lets out a slightly exasperated laugh and tells her he will explain later. 

No shortage of good-natured fumbling later he slides in, and _this_ \-- this is just right. Everything is so real. The waves of pleasure tinged with pain, the stretch almost as uncomfortable as it is exquisite and she thrills at the vibration of his moans against her skin.  
In her dreams he had always remained quiet save for dirty talk and endearments. Ellana has never had a vocal partner before, so, she supposes, she could not know how much she would love it.

He moans loudly for her, rewarding the rhythmic clenching of her inner muscles with gasps and curses. Pulls her onto his lap and leans her backwards, and for a moment she almost complains about the awkwardness of the position; then he thrusts. The tip of him hits a spot inside of her she hadn’t known existed and it makes her whole body jerk and spasm -- an orgasm, yes, but unlike any other she’s had before. 

Fantasies always had them finishing together, pleasure combined and in-sync; reality has her finish thrice before he ever comes. One release each on his fingers, his mouth, his _cock_. Ellana ends up exhausted and panting on her back, too worn out to continue to meet his thrusts, but that seems to be what he was waiting for. Immediately after she goes limp his thrusts turn frantic, coming in seconds.

They bask silently in the afterglow, breathless panting their only conversation. This part too she had left out, never once had she thought about the time _after_ they made love. Ellana isn’t certain where to go from here, and is just on the verge of a full-on panic attack when Solas hoists himself back above her, searching her eyes with his own.

A rejuvenation spell surges through her, pushing out a gasp from her still flushed lips.

“As much as I wish we could stay here forever Vhenan, there is much to do.”

Is that it then? One tumble to get him out of her system, will this be a pattern for them, every few months a kiss or a fuck to hold her over; or is this…

“But first, a bath, I think.” his smile is suggestive and mischievous, and does much for Ellana’s continued nerves.

She smiles back at him and calls for water to be brought up, pushing away all insecurities and questions about what comes next.

So what if their relationship was still undefined, it better than it was yesterday. Almost infinitely so. 

_Time._ He’d said he needed time, so time was what she would give him. 

_‘Ar lath ma, Solas.’_ she thinks, falling back into his arms. _‘I would wait an eternity for you.’_

**Author's Note:**

> I'm sorry it took me so long to finish this, I sorta temporarily quit half-way. 
> 
> I'm still not used to anyone reading my stuff, even anonymously. So I chickened out.
> 
> My bad.


End file.
